


In These Times of Tyranny

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:13:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything that went wrong last time, the last thing Charlie Matheson wants is to be a hero. Sometimes, though, there's no choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wish You'd Never Met Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelette/gifts).
  * Translation into Magyar available: [Ilyen zsarnokság idején](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284643) by [a walking Babel fish (angelette)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelette/pseuds/a%20walking%20Babel%20fish)



> In These Times of Tyranny was written for inlokisarmy as part of the Mixup Big Bang. She put together a wonderful mix that gave me some great ideas and I had great fun writing the fic.
> 
> Thanks to imaginary_rose, who ran the challenge, and my lovely prompter inlokisarmy.
> 
> The masterpost is here: http://inlokisarmy.livejournal.com/25990.html

_Unaffiliated Border Territories - 12 months after the Second Blackout_

‘Well,’ Bass said conversationally. ‘This is embarrassing.’

Miles twisted his mouth. ‘Shut up.’

One of the kids surrounding them poked him in the ribs with a spear. ‘Be quiet! Put your hands up.’

Miles slapped the spear away and didn’t. They had made it halfway across the country, walking from the ruins of the Tower to the independent border-towns. Only to be taken prisoner by a kid-gang of 12-year olds just outside Ciudad. Miles had given up any illusions about himself six years ago when he first decided to crawl into a bottle and fester, but he still had his pride.

He hooked his thumb in the sword-belt slouching low around his hips.

‘Look, you’re on a hiding to nothing here,’ he said. ‘We got nothing worth stealing and we ain’t pretty enough for girlfriends, so -’

‘We aren’t rapists!’ one of the kids said indignantly. ‘Or thieves.’

‘So who are you?’ Bass asked. He hadn’t raised his hands either.

‘We’re rebels.’

‘The Matheson Militia,’ someone else said.

Ah, for fuck’s sake. Miles scrubbed his hand through his ragged hair. ‘Whatever, you aren’t going to get anything from us.’

‘Information,’ the girl who’d called them the Matheson Militia said. Her grubby face was too grim for a kid who still had baby-fat. ‘Now drop your swords and put your hands up.’

Miles glanced at Bass. The tilt of a sandy brow suggested a fight, a twitch of a mouth dismissed it and a tip of the chin acknowledged a consensus on ‘not yet’.

He unhooked his sword-belt and tossed it to the girl, his jeans sagging worryingly low. It had been a long walk, and he’d never been much of a hunter. Whatever spare flesh he’d left after the war, was gone now. Bass gave up his sword and pistol, grimacing irritably as plastic cuffs were looped snugly over his wrists.

Spears poked them forwards into a march, shuffling them off the cracked tarmac and into the long grass.

‘If you are just travellers,’ the girl said, falling into step besides them as she hooked the belts over her shoulder. ‘General Matheson will send you on your way, but you might as well head back. Nothing to the East anymore.’

She stretched her legs, jogging to the front of the group. Bass shifted his shoulders and gave Miles a disgusted look. ‘General Matheson,’ he said. ‘I blame you.’

Miles growled at him. ‘Not the first time someone’s tried to cash in on my reputation.’

Bass rolled his shoulders and grunted. ‘First time they out-manned us though.’

‘Please,’ Miles said. ‘We’ve got more years of experience than all these kids added together.’

‘Trust me,’ Bass said. ‘After walking all this way? That’s not an advantage.’

Taking a tally of his aches and pains, the familiar grind of old injuries and the jag of new - right down to the blisters on his heels, Miles couldn’t really argue. On the other hand.... He shrugged. ‘It’s the only one we’ve got, asshole.’

‘Great,’ Bass said. ‘I blame you.’

Resentful silence filled the air between them. After Neville had blown the Tower on his way out, it had been Bass who dug Miles out. Bloody and battered, nursing wrenched tendons and cracked bones, neither of them had a hope of making it back on their own. So they’d fallen into old habits and started walking.

That didn’t make them friends. There was too much blood under the bridge for that, and neither of them knew how to fix it. Miles wasn’t even sure he wanted to. It bothered him, how easy it was to fall into that old partnership. Still brothers, still so close to the same that they thought in sync. He was supposed to have changed. He didn’t know if he’d changed enough.

After twenty minutes march the pair of them were handed off to another patrol and marched through the desert to a military sprawl of old clay buildings. They got curious looks as they were marched across an empty, dirt-packed square. Miles catalogued the weak points in the defence by habit: blind spots, obstructions, guards sweating resentfully through punishment detail.

There weren’t as many as he’d have expected, but enough to take advantage of if they needed it.Most of the soldiers looked like they were under 20, none of them looked like they were over 30. Goddamn, he felt old.

One of the guards ran forwards to duck into the main building. ‘General, we caught spies on the western border.’

Bass laughed softly under his breath. ‘I think we’ve been promoted.’

‘Sounds better than vagrants,’ Miles said.

He unclenched his fists and wriggled his hands in the suddenly loose cuffs. A sideways glance confirmed Bass was doing the same, attention on the guy who’d taken his gun. Once the ‘general’ came out - probably some ex-Militia officer with a brand and a line in war stories - this would be over in ten minutes.

‘That’s no spy,’ an almost familiar voice said. Almost familiar, except it was impossible. Miles swung around and stared at the slim, tanned girl in battered jeans and a shabby grey jacket. ‘That’s my uncle.’

Charlie.

She looked tired and solemn, her mobile, clever face unusually still. For a second he thought that it had finally happened, Charlie had learned that one thing even she couldn’t forgive. Then her face lit up in that huge, uncomplicatedly happy smile and she threw herself into his embrace.

‘Miles,’ she said, voice cracking and her knobbly fists digging into his shoulders. ‘I thought you were dead.’

He spread his hand carefully against her back and pressed a shaky kiss against the top of her head. She smelt of dust and grass and Charlie. He closed his eyes for a second, relief so strong it felt brutal.

‘I thought Neville had you.’

He gave her one last squeeze and set her back a step, looking her over from tiptoe to crown. She was alive and well - whole and while there were shadows in her eyes, there were no cracks.

‘So who’s this General then?’ he asked.

She gave him a crooked smile and tucked her hair behind her ear, waiting. Behind him Bass gave a bark of humourless laughter.

‘Looks like it runs in the family, Miles,’ he said.

Miles’ heart dropped into his boots. Of course. It was obvious. It just wasn’t what he’d wanted for Charlie - his bright, moral girl who saw the best in everyone. Even him.

‘Why?’ he asked.

She shrugged, mobile mouth twisting. ‘What else was I going to do? Let Jason dandle me on his knee and his mom curl my hair?’

 


	2. Open Wounds

_Philadelphia: After the Second Blackout_

 

The United States Army arrived on the East Coast expecting to find a slagged to glass wasteland, populated with the dead and the dying. The advance troops wore age-brittle radiation suits, squinting through scratched opaque visors, and the ranking officers carried bottles of drinking water and pop-packets of tablets - just in case.

General Neville of the Republic (the Monroe diplomatically redacted) met them with toothy grins and fancy footwork and a mouth full of freshly spun lies. By the time he finished, his own legend was polished to a shine and Rachel had all the blame. Charlie stood on the docks next to Julia, her hair tangling in the stiff, salty breeze, and bit her tongue until she tasted pennies.

It had been Aaron who saved them all. He’d woken the nanites back up, jury-rigging new orders for them as he cursed his fingers for getting slow and kept typing right up to the time Neville blew his brains over the computer. Whatever he did - and even Rachel didn’t seem to know - it worked. Mostly. Sort off.

The electricity went back out again - completely, pendant or no magic pendant - and while it was too late to stop the bombs, the only destruction was caused by flame and concussion. It was bad enough, - that’s why Neville was bending the neck so thoroughly - but without Aaron it would have been worse.

‘I have Rachel Matheson under my care,’ Neville continued. ‘She’s...fragile.’

Suicidal. The word he was avoiding was suicidal. Rachel had tried to kill herself three times since they got back. There was a surprising amount of blood in that thin, bony body.

Charlie had a feeling that General Hartman didn’t believe a word of Neville’s spin, but since they had to conquer the territory now - instead of just marching over corpses - he smiled like a snake and gripped Tom’s hand.

‘It’s good to see some people remember the United States,’ he said, voice pitched to carry. ‘Good to know there are still patriots. America was the greatest country in the world; it will be again.’

The crowd herded together to greet the invading forces started to clap nervously, then someone cheered and suddenly everyone was yelling and singing. Even Julia, hand on her chest and voice throbbing with passion.

Charlie supposed sourly that being married to Neville gave her a lot of opportunity to practice her fake passion. She caught Hartman staring at her and belatedly lifted her hand, mouthing her way through words she didn’t know. It felt stupid - it felt empty. This wasn’t what Nora had talked about.

 

In the weeks following the Rebels marched to Philly and laid down their weapons; moth-eaten old flags were dug up from under floorboards and flown raggedly from every flagpole that had once had a Monroe M flapping from it and the militia were promptly subsumed into the US army as ‘reserves’. Neville turned his coat again, accepting a demotion to reserves Major and governor of the East Coast.

‘Bit of  step down from ‘President’ isn’t it?’ Charlie said over the interminable, unbearable family dinner. She stabbed a chunk of the over-sliced venison with her fork. ‘I can’t imagine Monroe ever bending the neck.’

‘Charlie,’ Jason said, voice doing that anxious dip. ‘Don’t, please.’

She ignored him. Neville put his knife and fork down, metal clinking on china. His face was all hard lines and resentment. ‘You ungrateful little bitch. I should have left you to rot with your traitor Uncle.’

‘Pot, meet kettle,’ Charlie said.

Neville lunged up from the table, knocking his chair flying, and back-handed her out of her chair. Pain flared in her jaw, red pinking the corners of her vision, then Neville’s hand was twisted in her hair and he dragged her to her feet.

‘If my son didn’t want to fuck your pert ass,’ he spat through tight lips. ‘I’d have you hung out for the vultures.’

She spat in his face and kneed him in the balls.

They dragged him off her: Julia kissing his split knuckles and talking fast about ‘cultural expectations’ and needing to ‘establish themselves’, while Jason pressed a wadded up napkin to Charlie’s split lip and begged her to stop.

‘You’re never going to win,’ he said.

Charlie leaned back from him, shoving his hand away. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, licking blood from her teeth. Winning wasn’t the point - she’d already lost, everything was gone - but she didn’t have to let Neville enjoy it.

‘I’m going to my room,’ she said flatly. Two militia - reserve now, she supposed - guards escorted her there and locked the door behind her. For her own safety.

In the morning Julia came by to wake her up. She wasn’t Neville, so the threat wasn’t a fist to the face but a poisoned word in the ear. She had a pot of make-up to cover the bruises, the words to the American anthem written on a scrap of paper and the sad news that Rachel had somehow gotten her hands on a razor.

‘We try to be so careful,’ Julia murmured, laying out the pale pink pencil dress for the day. ‘But she’s such a clever woman. Luckily the doctor caught her in time, although she may lose the use of that hand...’

Charlie hated herself for it, but she folded. She put on the dress and learnt the words and sat inside her own head while Julia patted and fussed at her face. Her hatred wasn’t worth Rachel’s life.

The honeymoon lasted three weeks.

The first arrest was a woman selling home-made US flags from a stall outside Independence Hall. She was dragged away and the stall was burnt. There was a new US flag now, it was announced. Blue stripes and a triangle instead of a square, to reflect the new alliance between the US and Cuba. Old flags were torn down, shredded and burned. Anyone who protested was arrested and sent to the freshly constructed work-camps outside the city.

‘15 years have passed,’ Neville said, standing outside Independence Hall to address the people. ‘We can’t go back, we must look forwards. This is a new day in the annals of the United States.’

Hartman gestured to the band and they struck up the anthem, the once enthusiastic crowd raggedly mouthing the words. Soldiers shoved through the crowds, grabbing anyone not singing and dragging them to carts with Monroe’s symbol barely scrubbed off the sides. Anyone who fought back was beaten down until they co-operated. It was too effective to be vicious, kidney punches and batons to the knee. It hardly even registered as violence.

Most of the people dragged out were Charlie’s age. She stopped mid-verse and turned on Hartman, grabbing his arm.

‘What are you doing?’ she said. ‘Stop it. They’ve not done anything wrong.’

‘They’re rebels,’ he said, not even looking at her. ‘Secessionists. We can’t have that.’

‘They don’t know the words,’ Charlie said. ‘And two months ago, being a rebel meant we were on your side.’

Hartman put a gloved hand over hers and dug his fingers in, pressing down against bone and jagging a shocking pain up Charlie’s arm. Tears started to her eyes and her fingers went numb.

‘And now it doesn’t,’ he said, extricating himself. ‘You’re a smart girl, Miss Matheson. Don’t make me remember that you didn’t know them either.’

He let go and strode off stage, warding off Neville’s abortive attempt to stop him with a ‘not now, major’. Charlie clenched her teeth and rubbed her arm, waiting for-

Nothing. Neville did nothing as his people were dragged away. That day or in the week that followed, when any crime was enough to get you send to the camps.

‘What was he meant to do?’ Jason asked that night, sitting on the edge of the couch as Charlie paced her nicely appointed cell. She missed her boots. Pacing had authority in boots, in her stupid beige ‘pumps’ - Julia had given up on heels when Charlie fell over for the 100th time - she just scuffed over the floor.

‘Fight,’ she said, turning to glare at him. ‘Stop them?’

‘He’s one man.’

Charlie pressed her knuckles against her forehead, trying to hang onto calm. ‘He took over from Monroe. He said he’d be better. Well, this was his chance to prove it.’

‘Things have changed now,’ Jason said. ‘He can’t just ignore them. They’re in charge, and people will get used to the new rules.’

Charlie glared at him. Even he didn’t sound like he believed that - he just wished he could. The laws changed weekly, any time the carts full of bruised, shackled youths started to empty out.

‘They need slave labour,’ she said flatly, ignoring his grimaced attempt to deny it. ‘They set out expecting to fight a...an electronic war, and now they need weapons and transport and conscripts.’

‘So did Monroe, so did Dad -’

‘Don’t,’ Charlie said. ‘They were supposed to be better. The US was supposed to be better than the Republic.’

Jason got up and walked over to her, pulling her into a hug that she stiffly allowed. She buried her face in his traitor’s uniform and closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of new wool and old Jason. Please, please - say the right thing, she thought miserably. Be the handsome, wayward hero who’d protect her, be everything she wanted - be Miles. Just this once, let what she wanted and what she should want be the same thing?

‘Those were ideals, Charlie,’ Jason said. ‘This is reality - nothing ever really changes. There’s always going to be people in charge and everyone else gets the short end of the straw.’

He stroked her hair, calluses catching on the fine strands. ‘I’m just glad you’re safe, Charlie,’ he said. ‘That’s all I care about. I love you.’

Charlie knew, she’d never doubted that.

‘Jason...’

‘Please, Charlie,’ he interrupted, pushing her back and staring at her earnestly. ‘I’m a captain in the reserves - once the Republic is pacified, we could get married. Have a family. We’ll be happy.’

‘...I know...’ Charlie mouthed the words, smiling through the need to cry.

Over his shoulder, in the dark window, she caught a glimpse of herself. Mrs Neville - Julia lite in her tight pastel dress and her neatly groomed plait. It wasn’t the life she’d ever imagined, but that didn’t make it bad.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jason, for the first time since he’d held her back so his father could murder Miles. He hesitated, started, and then kissed her back - his hands curving around her ass to pull her close.

‘I like you in a dress,’ he mumbled against her lips, tugging the skirt up. ‘You look...all grown up.’

She stroked the side of his face, fingers gentle. ‘You do know that reserves is another word for cannon fodder, Jason?’ she asked.

‘What?’ he asked, half-laughing, half-confused.

Her free hand closed around the heavy stone figurine of a dancer - a ballerina, Julia had told her - adding that she’d taken ballet once - and swung. The base caught him on the temple, skin splitting and bone making a horrible, brittle sound, and he dropped. Charlie tried to catch him, grabbing at his jacket as he went down.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she chanted, the weight of him dragging her down to the carpet with him. She wiped her face on her sleeve. ‘I did love you....in Georgia.’

It had been easy to love him in the hot, busy marketplaces of the beautiful South, stealing long, sugar-sticky hours of kisses and oranges. With no battles to fight and everyone sure they were a long-shot away from losing the war - from dying, because Monroe had no quarter in him - it had been easy to give in and be that indulgent, easy going Charlie. It wasn’t real though, she wasn’t real, and it broke Charlie’s heart a little that was the girl Jason loved.

He’d never really known Charlie at all if he thought she could ever be happy to be safe at the expense of other people, if he thought she could forgive him for trading her life for Aaron’s.

For Miles’.

Too late for explanations now, though. Time to burn her bridges.


	3. World's Apart

_El Paso - 12 Months After the Second Blackout_

 

It felt good to be clean. Bass scrubbed his hands through wet hair, flattening it down against his skull, and squinted at his reflection in the cracked, fly-spotted mirror nailed to the wall. He rubbed his thumb along his jawline. The stubble was well on its way to becoming a beard. Shave it or let it go? Right now, it probably wasn’t a good idea to look too much like the deposed General Monroe.

He left it. There was a hamper of clothes in the corner of the room. The boy who’d shown him in - all acne and cracked glasses - had pointed it out.

‘Take what fits,’ he’d said.

Jeans and t-shirts and even a couple of the ragged, grey jackets that passed as a uniform around here. It was tempting to shrug one on - and not just because of the thought on General Charlotte’s pretty face. He still didn’t feel properly dressed without the struts and braces of a uniform to depend on. However, considering how much she hated him, he figured that he shouldn’t push his luck. He settled on a pair of 15 year old designer jeans - amused even now at the flicker of vanity - and a long-sleeved shirt to cover his arm. His own boots. Well, the boots he’d looted from one of the dead Morlocks in the Tower, but after 1000 miles he figured he’d walked them into his.

The boy stuck his head around the door, blinking at Bass owlishly.

‘General Matheson is waiting for you in the command tent, when you’re ready?’

‘Lead the way,’ Bass said.

The boy scowled at him - a rebel? a refugee? some militia soldier had buggered his pig? - but showed him to the big grey tent on the outskirts of the camp. Bass looked around unabashedly, taking in the guards (not bad, not how he’d have stationed them) and the grey-jacketed soldiers who glared at him and the ones who twitched like they wanted to salute.

Despite everything, he was still slightly surprised when he ducked through the tent flap and found Charlotte instead of Miles behind the big desk. That was going to get confusing. She glanced up from her conversation to acknowledge him, a flick of big, blue eyes directing him to wait in the corner. He smiled at her - just to watch her mouth pleat with annoyance - and went to look at her bookcase instead.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting - the last time he’d been even peripherally interested in what Charlotte Matheson liked, it had been anything with those brightly coloured My Little Ponies on it - but not this. It was a mixed bag of the warfare nerd classics - Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Keegan’s The History of Warfare - and some that he’d thumbed through himself - Petraeus’ Field Manual and The Accidental Guerilla by Kilcullen.

Apparently Charlotte was taking this whole thing more seriously than he’d thought.

Bass walked his fingers along the cracked, broken spines curiously, finding a few that he wished he’d thumbed through back in the day. He tugged Ghost Map out of the stack and flicked through it - that would have useful when they had the cholera outbreak in Boston.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Charlotte twitching with every book he touched.

‘That’ll do for now, Gayle,’ she finally said, setting her pen down with a click. ‘I’ll see what our scavengers can source, and we’ll be moving soon. Maybe there’ll be better pickings.’

Quartermaster, then.

Bass, book still in hand, turned to take his measure. Only to get an eyeful of boob as the girl turned around, baby in her arms on the tit. He looked away quickly, hot wash of old world awkward hitting him, while Charlotte and the woman talked supply lines and ammo on their way to tent flap.

Once the breast-feeding quartermaster was gone, Charlotte stalked over to snatch her book out of his hands. Her cheeks were pink and she glared at him defiantly as she shoved it back on the shelf, the set of her jaw daring him to say something.

‘Where did you find Petraeus’ book?’ he asked, deliberately mild. ‘I lost mine in Baltimore, couldn’t find a replacement for love nor money.’

She blinked, eyeing him like she suspected he was mocking her.

‘One of the Cuban officers had it,’ she said eventually. ‘It looked useful.’

‘Cubans?’

She flipped her fingers dismissively. ‘The US government forces - that’s where they spent the last 15 years. Cuba.’

Bass grimaced, an old, bad taste on the back of his tongue, as he constructed a shaky narrative of who’d been at the top of that pyramid. No one good, was the answer. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at Charlotte.

‘It’s bad then,’ he said. It wasn’t a question, she answered it anyhow.

‘Yeah.’ She stepped back and pointed at the chair. ‘Sit down. Please.’

It galled her to be even that polite, Bass could see it. He was used to be being hated - but it always had a special sting coming from a Matheson. Shades of Miles about their faces, he supposed. He sat down, slouching comfortably and watched her lean back against the desk.

Definite shades of Miles there. Charlie didn’t look much like her uncle - not when her face was relaxed - but her expressions were his, the way she moved, the way she leaned and frowned. Bass shifted in his seat.

‘So, this is nice,’ he said. ‘A nice civilised chat.’

‘I hate you.’

‘Or not.’

Her mouth twitched like she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or curse. Her hands fidgeted at her belt, at each other, before she folded her arms and trapped her fingers under her elbows.

‘You killed my Dad, you kidnapped my brother, you killed my brother,’ she said, voice rough but steady. He opened his mouth and she glared at him. ‘Don’t. You gave the order; you set it in motion.’

‘I know,’ he said, spreading his hands over his knees. ‘I’m not making excuses, not anymore. I did a lot of bad things, monstrous things.’

She swallowed hard and licked her lips. Miles did that took. Her voice was still steady as she admitted, ‘So did Uncle Miles. So did Mom and Dad. I gave them second chances.’

It was what he’d expected, and somehow wasn’t. When she’d not sent someone to drown him in the bath he’d figured he’d get the hard sell of forgiveness, on making amends. It was a good bargaining tactic. He’d used it himself. The hard crack of reluctance in Charlie’s voice, the stiff honesty of her - it felt real. There were no real second chances, no do-overs - no going back in time to uncrumple the wreck of your whole life. Bass knew that, but looking at Charlie’s earnest, angry face - she didn’t.

‘You offering me one, Charlotte?’ he asked, flip tones hiding the fact that he suddenly, desperately wanted her to say yes.

‘I don’t want to,’ she admitted, ‘but I could use you. Compared to the Cubans, people are thinking they had it good under you.’

He shifted again - aware of her warmth, the clean, lemongrass smell they shared and the fact she hadn’t meant that as a come-on - and smirked. ‘Never appreciate you till you’re dead.’

‘They still don’t like you,’ Charlotte said with quelling honesty, ‘but they don’t think you’d have bent the neck so easy.’

‘Tom always did have a habit of dropping his pants and presenting ass when he was stressed,’ Bass said. She wrinkled her nose at him - a silent ew - and he shrugged a non-apology. ‘So, you want me as a figurehead to your little army? Miles can do the job, and he’ll bother to try and make you look good while he’s at it.’

She shook her head.

‘The story is you died at the Tower, locked in mortal combat with Miles as the walls came down,’ she said. ‘Nobody really believes it, but he came back and you didn’t and soldiers need orders. I don’t need a figurehead, Monroe. I want you to take the militia back.’


	4. Chalk Outline

_Philadelphia - Two Months after the Second Blackout_

 

With the weapons-belt cinched tight over jacket and the rolled up cuffs of the jacket tucked into tightly laced boots, the uniform would pass. In the dark. From a distance. She kept her hair in the plait, scraped back tight from her face, and hurried along like she was going to get in trouble for not being somewhere.

That and a flash of her branded wrist, baggy cuff tugged down to show off the off-centre scar, got her through most of the guard-posts. She could have easily got to the stables and away, but...

‘General - Major - Neville sent me to fetch Mrs Matheson,’ she said, striding along the hall to her mother’s suite. The two guards glanced at each other, a quick flick of their eyes, and then at her. Charlie played Nora, the confident sway of her hips and amused ‘orders, eh’ tilt of her mouth. She flicked a roll of paper between her fingers as she got closer. ‘He wants to debrief her before her meeting with the US ambassador.’

It was the truth. Or would be tomorrow - Charlie had heard Neville trying to script Rachel’s reactions out for her.

‘Orders,’ one guard said, holding out his hand.

Charlie dropped the the paper in his hand without really looking at him, giving the younger, nervy looking guard a wink. He pinked under acne scars and Charlie felt a sharp jab of sorrow.

‘I wish I had a job where I got to stand around all day,’ she teased, leaning in and running her finger along the gun. ‘Just polishing my weapon.’

‘These aren’t-’ the other guard started to protest. Charlie pulled the knife, the weight off at the tip and hilt just a little big for her hand, and sheathed it in his gut. His eyes and mouth went big with shock. Charlie clamped her hand over his mouth, fingers digging into his cheeks, and yanked the knife out of his gut. It was harder than it looked, the wall of abdominal muscle clutching at the blade. Once it was free she dragged it across his throat, digging deep enough to shred windpipe and vocal cords for good. Blood splattered over her face, onto her lips, and she couldn’t think about that.

Charlie had killed before, but with her bow or the guns they’d been burning through in the war. Never this close.

The guard slumped back against the door, face slack and confused, as Charlie grabbed his gun, turned and rammed the gun into the other guard’s stomach. Layers of fat, muscle and intestine stifled the sharp retort of the gun.

He blinked and opened his mouth to raise the alarm, blood dribbled his tongue and down his jaw, splattering on his jacket. It didn’t take him long to die.

Charlie swallowed sour bile and shook the tremble from her hands, crouching down to search the guards. They were still warm, their pockets vaguely sweaty from standing inside for so long. Charlie retched, but kept looking until she found the keys to the room. She used the door knob to drag herself up and let herself in, blinking at the dark and the antiseptic smell.

‘Rachel?’ she said, stepping over the threshold. ‘Mom?’

A sleepy, hoarse voice mumbled ‘Charlie’ from too close, making her jump, and a lantern spluttered from dim to bright. Rachel looked....like someone who wanted to die. Her hair was greasy and scraped back in a bun, her eyes were sunken and her lips were dry and cracked with raw lines that split and bled when she smiled tearily at Charlie.

‘Charlie, baby,’ she said, holding out bandaged arms. ‘You’re alright. Tom wouldn’t tell me anything.’

Miles would have come up with something clever to say, reassuring through the sheer lack of shits he gave about anything happening to him. All Charlie wanted was a hug. She staggered over to the couch and collapsed into her mother’s arms, a dry, raw sob clawing at her throat.

‘I want to go home,’ she admitted, voice wobbling with longing.

Rachel stroked her back. ‘I know, baby. You just have to have patience, Tom will let you go back eventually. Us. You can show me where Ben-’

Her rough voice cracked and Charlie felt a pang of familiar guilt. The last time she’d wanted ‘home’ this much had been when Rachel left and ‘home’ had been her mom’s soup and tucking her in at night and not having to take care of Danny while Dad went ‘hunting’ and came back empty-handed and guilty and smelling of booze. It was a person, not a place, and these days...

When she thought of ‘home’ now, it was wood-smoke campfires and jerky soup and Miles snarking about the food and her hair and, sometimes, when it was dark and no-one else could see him, the heavy warmth of his arm slung companionably over her shoulder. It wasn’t that she loved Miles more than Dad, but Miles was there and Dad was gone...

Now so was Miles.

‘I can’t go back,’ Charlie said, scrambling up. ‘We have to go. Do you have money? Anything you could sell.’

Rachel caught clumsily at her sleeve. ‘Don’t, Charlie. It’s done. Just be quiet and be good, Tom will let you go eventually. Things could be worse.’

Charlie dropped into a crouch, bloody hands on Rachel’s knees. ‘I killed two guards, I think I killed Jason. It will be worse if they catch me.’

‘Why?’ Rachel asked, horrified.

‘Someone has to do something?’ Charlie shrugged. ‘I guess it’s going to be me.’

‘Jason loved you. He’d have kept you safe.’

‘I don’t need anyone else to keep me safe,’ Charlie said. ‘Other people do. Now, we have to go.’

‘You go,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ll just slow you down.’

Charlie grabbed her arms above the bandages and hauled her to her feet. ‘You’ll just be bait in a trap if you stay,’ she said. ‘Get dressed. Quickly.’

The mother she knew snapped back into place like a mask - sad, blue eyes going cold and the despairing lines of her face turning determined. She ran a bandaged hand through her hair and nodded sharply. ‘Ok,’ she said. ‘OK. I know a place we can go to be safe. She won’t be happy to see us, but she’ll take us in.’

While Rachel got dressed, Charlie went back outside. She grabbed one of the dead guard’s under the arm and dragged him through the door, his shoulders heavy against her knees as she struggled with the dead weight of him. She dumped him on the carpet and looted the body, stripping it of anything she could use from guns to a book of matches with a set of boobs printed sloppily on the thin paper. The other guard got the same treatment, and she grabbed the heavy rug from the couch to sop up the spilled blood from the wooden floor.

‘What are you doing?’ Rachel asked, sounding horrified.

‘Buying time,’ Charlie said, straightening up. ‘Missing guards merit investigation, dead guards mean an alarm raised.’

It wouldn’t be much time, but they were going to need all they could get. Charlie kicked the blood-sodden rug back into the room and looked at Rachel, raising her eyebrows. ‘You ready?’

Rachel nodded, patting the satchel at her hip. ‘I have antibiotics, medical supplies, painkillers - they’re in short supply, they should raise a good price.’

Charlie handed her one of the guns and a fresh clip of bullets. ‘You might need these.’

A wry smile tucked the corner of Rachel’s mouth and she held up her hands. Only some of her fingers worked, the rest curled neatly against her palm. ‘I think you might be a better shot.’

‘Take it anyhow.’

A shrug and she did, clumsily tucking it into her pocket. Charlie took her hand and pulled her along behind her as they left the suite. Once they were back in the Hall proper, though, it was Rachel who took charge.

‘I spent a lot of time here,’ she said wryly, ‘not being seen.’

They slipped down narrow corridors and steep back staircases until they reached the courtyard. It was the same one that Charlie’s rooms looked down on. She gestured for Rachel to wait behind her and shuffled forwards until she could peek around the cracked door. Over the last few weeks, she’d spent hours just staring out her window at the watch changes.

It hadn’t been a plan. She’d never had a plan to escape, it was just something she’d thought Miles would have wanted to know. So she’d done it. Now it was paying off.

It was the fat Reserves soldier on the turret and the resentful ginger one on guard at the door. Charlie counted down until the soldier propped his ample belly on the balcony and stared wistfully North. He was Canadian, one of the men Major Boal had sent down to help with the reconstruction, and wanted to go back. Charlie didn’t think about why that might be. If she had to kill him, she didn’t want to have populated her brain with a family of happy, fat Canadians.

She crooked her finger at Rachel, calling her forwards, and marched her out into the courtyard. Her stomach burbled with acid-butterflies, the nape of her neck itching with fear, but she kept it out of her face as she cursed Rachel up one side and down the other.

‘Goddamn it, now Captain Farveau thinks I’m an idiot,’ she ranted. ‘I told you, we don’t want that home-brewed herb shit. These aren’t some Plains refugees grateful to have a place to shit that ain’t where they eat. They are the fucking American army -’

She got off, grimacing, and nodded to the guard. ‘Got to escort this one back to her cart,’ she said, voice clipped and unhappy. ‘We ain’t taking her bottles of moonshine and willow-bark. Jesus, Farveau’s face.’

The ginger guard smirked - enjoying her embarrassment - and waved her through. It wasn’t even wrong, just sloppy. Charlie gave Rachel a disgusted shove, hurrying her ahead of her and kept up her muttering till they were outside.

‘Where did you learn to curse like that?’ Rachel demanded, clutching her arm. ‘I should wash your mouth out with soap.’

Charlie smiled crookedly and kept moving, stripping the jacket off and tying it around her hips - over the gun belt - once they were outside. ‘Miles.’

‘Always a bad influence,’ Rachel said. ‘But he kept you alive. I can forgive him anything for that.’

‘He loved you,’ Charlie said. It was almost an accusation.

‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘He just thought...it would make it all cleaner if he did.’

They traded Charlie’s diamond and sapphire earrings for two old, mean mules and a rickety cart. The trader looked sad to see the mules go, but told Charlie, ‘Better off with you ladies than seized by the Cubans. They’d not give me the skin off their shit, and they’d boil these two for soup and shoe-leather.’

He hadn’t named them. Rachel, in an odd burst of good humour, promptly dubbed them Leclanche and Pupin. Charlie didn’t get the joke, but it seemed to tickle Rachel. It took two days, sleeping in shifts and only resting the mules sporadically, before Charlie stopped waiting for the sound of hoofbeats behind them.

‘They won’t just let us go,’ Rachel said one evening over the fire.

‘I know,’ Charlie said, pulling her knees up. She was tired to the point of feeling sick, even when she took her turn on the bedroll she couldn’t really rest. It was like when Danny was sick, she had to keep twitching awake to make sure Rachel hadn’t...done anything. ‘But Neville won’t tell Hartman he lost you, not until he absolutely has to. He’ll look stupid - he can’t bear that. Besides -’

She stopped - guilt and responsibility dragging at her.

‘What?’ Rachel said.

Charlie took a deep breath, woodsmoke in her lungs. ‘Besides, once we split up it will be more difficult for him to track us.’

An odd, cautious smile touched Rachel’s face. ‘Then we’ll met up again. In Chicago or-’

‘No,’ Charlie said, trying to sound firm. ‘I didn’t run away to- I’m not running away. This is our fault - we wanted to beat Monroe so bad, we did this. So, I’m going to do my best to fix it.’

‘You’re one girl.’

‘I’m twenty two,’ Charlie said. ‘And Monroe was just one man. Look what he did.’

‘He was a monster.’

‘Yes,’ Charlie agreed, although it was harder to put the old venom behind it. Monroe was last year’s devil. ‘I’m not saying I want to emulate him, but he stood up and he made a difference. An awful difference, but-’

‘I need you,’ Rachel interrupted. ‘I can’t bear for you to do this.’

Charlie reached over the fire and squeezed Rachel’s hand. ‘Mom, I never let go of Danny’s hand. Not once. Don’t do that to me again. Please?’

The flicker and spit of the fire scorched the underside of Charlie’s arm, toasting the heavy wool of the jacket. Finally Rachel closed her eyes and nodded, her mouth pressing into a thin line.

‘OK.’

‘You sure?’

A quick, open smile cracked Rachel’s face. ‘No, but maybe I should listen to you more. You aren’t my little girl anymore and you’re braver than I ever was. You come and find me, afterwards though? Promise?’

Charlie nodded and took her hand back, scratching the itch of pink-scalded skin on her wrist. ‘I will. You be waiting.’

It was the closest either of them came to addressing the scars on Rachel’s wrists or the chemical-ruined rasp of her voice. Maybe it was cowardice on Charlie’s part, or maybe it was just that other people had been deciding Rachel’s life for so long - Charlie didn’t feel right being one of them.

In the morning Rachel took the mules and went north; Charlie headed west to the nearest work-camp.

 


	5. Shake it Out

_Border Territories - 12 Months after the Second Blackout_

 

Two days at the Fort and then the whole army packed up to move, scouring the place clean of their presence. Miles had what he’d arrived with and a new pair of jeans. It didn’t take him long to stuff it in a bag. He sat on the wall, drinking watered down whiskey out of a battered flask and watched them.

They looked like kids. He’d sent younger off to war when he was General Matheson; he’d been younger than some of them when he first shipped out to Afghanistan. It didn’t matter, they still looked like they should be getting tucked in and given warm milk on a night.

‘Getting old,’ he muttered.

A fist bumped his shoulder. ‘Some things get better with age.’

‘Very funny.’

Charlie hopped down off the wall and sat next to him, bumping shoulders companionably. Her long legs stretched out in front of her, boot heels kicking divots out of the dusty parade ground.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ she said.

His heart gave a bitter twist and he scrabbled for a way to say he wasn’t that old, claim that he was a draw for the militia as well as Bass. That she still needed him.

‘Worried I’m gonna cramp your style?’

Charlie shrugged and stuck her hands between her knees, hair falling forwards to hide her face. ‘Just this was always because of family: Dad and Danny. Him.’ She looked up, eyes unerringly finding Bass as he looked over the horses. ‘Or Mom. This isn’t. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d had enough.’

She shrugged her punctuation to the sentence, peeking at him uncertainly through her hair. Miles swallowed relief and scratched his jaw. His nails scraped through the dagger-shaved stubble.

‘I got nothing better to do.’

Charlie’s mouth twitched into that slow, sweet smile that lit up her whole face. He’d missed that. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

‘I’ve missed you, Miles,’ she said, curling her fingers into his.

Her voice had gone soft and...

No. Miles pushed those thoughts back down into their usual hole in the back of his mind, where all the shameful things lived. They'd done it once – not even it, a rough, angry kiss and hands in the wrong places for innocence. He'd tried to forget it – it would have been easier if it wasn't his go-to wank fantasy. No matter whose face he started with, it ended with Charlie in that lacy damn belt of a dress Drexel had given her, her lips parted and wet and his name on her tongue as he ground against his own hand. That was his perversion though, he wasn't dragging her down into the mire with him.

He stood up abruptly, capping his flask and shoving it into the pocket of his jacket.

‘Come on, show me my new army.’

She frowned at him, but held out her hand to let him pull her to her feet.

It was only a quarter of the militia, he found out. There were other cells scattered along the border. Governor Reyes had always been good at turning a blind eye for a good cause, Miles recalled. It had bitten him in the ass enough times when he was with the militia. Not that he’d been able to prove anything other than the woman made Julia look straightforward.

They pitched camp that night in the desert - no fires and extra blankets. Miles washed a meal of jerky down with stale water and watched Charlie duck in and out of tents, always pausing to talk if someone wanted to. Her hair was pulled back in a rough tail, the honey-coloured mass dust-dulled and heavy, and  Miles realised she didn’t remind him of Rachel anymore or Ben or...anyone else. Just Charlie.

Someone started to sing, a low, sweet song that was - Miles thought - new. Not from before anyhow, because other voices through camp chimed in raggedly on the chorus. A lanky boy with dark hair, a militia brand on the arm he threw around Charlie’s shoulder, tried to coax her to join in.

Miles threw the dregs of his water out on the dust and went into his tent, pulling the flask of whisky out of his pack. Bass was already there, sprawled on his cot and flicking through a book balanced on his chest.

‘They’re making skin mags thick these days,’ Miles said.

Bass lifted the book, angling it so Miles could see the cover page. ‘Charlotte loaned it to me. Suspiciously. I think she’s worried I’ll add bits.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Whatever you’re planning. Just don’t. She’s not some puppet, not your route back to power.’

‘I don’t want power,’ Bass said. ‘Never did.’

True. It would have been easier if he had. Power-hungry men were cautious, considered. Bass just wanted his family to be safe - and he’d do anything for that.

‘Charlie isn’t your route to what you want either.’

It was close to the longest conversation they’d had since the Tower. Miles lay down and closed his eyes, trying to sleep through the rise and fall of unfamiliar music. They’d used to sing rock songs, ballads. Led Zeppelin and - thank you very much, Jeremy - Katy Perry. Even when you couldn’t make out the words, the beat was familiar.

Sometime in the night, when it had gone dark and finally silent, the cot creaked as Bass crawled onto it. Warm lips on the cold skin of his neck and a hand tugging his jeans open.

It had been easier than talking on the long walk back - hate-sex and familiarity, bruises and hands in just the right places. Uncomplicated. Miles couldn’t remember which one of them had made the first move.

Long, callused fingers wrapped around his cock, getting him hard with the economy of long association. His thumb dragged roughly over the head, smearing come, and his fingers were rough with impatience. Miles swallowed a groan and tilted his head back against Bass’ shoulder. He hated that this felt right. Not the fucking - not just the fucking - the whole package.

Bass’ knee nudged between his thighs and he shifted, feeling the hard bulge of Bass’ erection against his hip.

He grabbed Bass’ wrist and dragged his hand off his cock, rolling over so he was sprawled over the lean, hard length of his... Whatever. Brother. Enemy. Best friend? All of the above. It didn’t really matter anymore, he supposed. He slanted a rough kiss over Bass’ mouth, stubble scraping and lips hard, while he reached down to fumble the other man’s cock out of his trousers.

It had never seemed weird.

Not even the first time, drunk and horny and blue-balled after the tourist they’d been pulling had fucked off with a local copper instead. They’d grown up together. Miles couldn’t remember a time - between shared baths and school showers and close quarters on deployment - that he hadn’t been nearly as familiar with Bass’ tackle as his own.

It hadn’t even been the first time they’d fucked in close proximity. Just the first there was no woman there for plausible deniability.

He trailed his thumb along the underside of Bass’ cock, following the thick vein from balls to head. Bass made a rough, hard sound of impatience and hooked a hand around the back of Miles’ neck, dragging him back down into a hard, wet kiss. He’d never cared for the niceties much.

It wasn’t exactly an ideal time to fuck - thin walls, watch changes and Charlie...yeah, Miles really didn’t want her to know about this - so they kissed and touched. Sweat slick between their bodies and cocks sliding against each other against the hard walls of their stomachs.

Heat dragged hot and heavy in Miles’ balls - an insistent, eager ache - as Bass dug hard fingers into his ass and dragged him closer. He reached down and shackled their cocks together with his hand, sensitive skin sliding against skin, pre-come slick on his fingers.

Bass came first, wet and sticky against their stomachs, and Miles shuddered his way through his release a second later. It smeared and spread, messy against their skin and sheets. Bass ducked his head against Miles shoulder, breath hot and ragged on his throat. The line of his shoulders was relaxed under Miles hand and just for a second he seemed like the old Bass. Before everything went to shit.

Then Bass shoved him off and got out of bed, wiping himself clean and buttoning his pants. His breathing rasped heavy and slow in the darkness.

‘Charlotte really believes in second chances, doesn’t she? She thinks we can all change.’

Miles threw his forearm over his eyes and sighed. ‘We both know that’s a lie.’

 


	6. Demons

_Columbus - Four Months After the Blackout_

 

Most of that first mission could be credited to other people: Miles had taught Charlie to fight, Nora had taught her explosives and Jason had taught her how the militia - reserves now - thought and fought. Charlie had learn how to sneak on her own though. She tied her hair back under a black strip of cloth, tucking the ends up where they tickled her neck, slung the satchel over her hip and found a hide to watch the keep.

High barbed wire fences ringed off a couple of acres of land, dividing it internally into plots. Soldiers in Reserves uniforms patrolled in staggered, intersecting routes both outside and inside the fences. Prisoners in shabby grey dungarees lugged boxes in and out of the main building, loading them onto trucks, or jogged in exhausted, serried ranks on huge treadwheels. Every time they slacked a whip cracked, stripping welts off bare, sun-burned backs, to get them moving again. The guards inside were all US officers.

Charlie tightened her mouth. There had been a farmer in Sylvania Estates who beat his animals like that. He’d been driven out, given a sackful of provisions and directions to the border, and they’d divided his stuff amongst the townsfolk.

These were people.

One of the guys tripped and fell, fouling the wheel. The rest of the crew stumbled over him, stamping on his fingers and staggering, until the guard got in and dragged him free. They gave him a perfunctory beating, hammering him till he stopped trying to get up, and dragged him off to a low, long hut.

Even under low, dull autumn sun, the corrugated iron roof and windowless walls would make it hot as hell in there. Charlie was sweltered in the muddy hollow of her hide, sweat under her arms and breasts. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve.

Sometimes she thought the nanites weren’t the problem. They were bad, but it was the people who made the world hell.

Charlie waited until night, snoozing in cat naps and starting awake to every snapped stick or rustled leaf to dry-mouthed panic. It was a relief when it was finally dark enough to crawl from under the bush, picking leaves and sticks out of her hair. She hitched her bag up and slunk over the open ground, dodging from shadow to shadow through the patches of cloud-filtered moonlight, to the edge of the fence.

The wire was thick gauge, the cutters digging grooves into the smooth metal but resisting nipping through. Charlie bit her lip, trying to keep the count steady in her head, and twisted the tool up and down until the link gave. It clicked apart and the whole fence gave a little rattling hum as the tension loosened.

Charlie flinched and moved on to the next link, clumsy in her eagerness to it down. She dropped the cutters at one point, nearly losing them to the other side of the fence. Eight links it took before she could peel the metal net of it back and squeeze through the narrow gap. She wrapped her fingers through the links and shoved it back out again. Once the stage was set she made a dash through the cover-less killing ground of the corridor between pens, skidding to a stop against the rough wall of the main building. It was old concrete, plaster cracking under her fingers, instead of a new build.

She dried her fingers on her legs and unpacked the explosives, working by memory, instinct and the dubious grey-hues of the dark. Minutes ago she’d been sweating, now her fingers were cold and clumsy, fear numbing them. She twisted the fuse into the modified grief knot Nora always used and packed the packages close to the wall.

Her fingers fumbled the book of stolen matches - hoping the sulfur had stayed dry - as she tried NOT to think about all the ways this could go wrong. Miles never seemed nervous before a fight. He’d spent days insisting it couldn’t be done, trying to convince her to give it up, but once Miles was committed, he didn’t seem to have a nerve in his body.

Not a Matheson trait, apparently.

Second match sparked and lit. Charlie closed her eyes, took a deep breath and lit the fuse. The line sparked sullenly to life and then quickened, eating its way eagerly towards the bomb. Charlie retreated to a safe - hopefully - distance and crouched down with her hands over her head. The explosion hit her back like a shove, sending her sprawling, and scalded the back of her neck and hands. Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. Hopefully, no one else would either.

There was no time to catch her breath. Charlie scrambled to her feet, yanking the scarf off her head and stuffing it into her pocket. Someone raised the alarm inside, a rolling clangour of bells competing with the sounds of people screaming and yelling orders.

Charlie ducked through the smoke and into the building, grabbing the arm of the first Reserves officer she saw. ‘Sir,’ she said, pointing back towards the fence. The sleeve of Jason’s uniform - the rank picked carefully off - rode up to flash her brand. ‘Perimeter breach. We’ve got a runner.’

The man’s face twisted with something very like fear. ‘Lucky bastard,’ he muttered. ‘But it’ll be our backs on the block if he gets away. Stay here, I’ll alert the commander.’

Charlie didn’t.

The minute he was gone she ditched her satchel and kept walking, dodging from group to group with conflicting reports of orders and what was going on. Deft fingers - Nora had made her practice in the dark on a belt with bells - plucked keys from belts as she went.

The armory was guarded by US officers, with weathered tans and whips hung on their belts like badges of honour.

‘What’s going on?’ one of them, eyebrows surprisingly blond against his skin, asked when he saw her. He wasn’t much older than her, she realised, than the people kept penned up in here. She shot him anyhow, the bark of the pistol muffled under the peal of the alarm.

The other guard snapped his rifle before his companion even hit the ground and fired. Charlie dodged to the side, but not fast enough. The bullet caught her arm, ripping through jacket and flesh. She landed hard, biting her cheek to stop from screaming, and shot him in the knee and then the face.

He dropped.

Charlie rolled on her back, blinking back tears and swearing under her breath. She could feel blood puddling under her, arm pulsing with pain and heat.

‘Fuck,’ she cursed.

Rolling over, one hand gripping her arm like a makeshift tourniquet, Charlie scrambled to her feet and stumbled over to the guard. No keys. Typical.

She toed his rifle away from his body and used her scarf to bandage her arm up, pulling it too-tight around her bicep. Then she shot the lock off the door, grabbing as many guns and as much ammo as she could carry without slowing her down much.

Hardly anyone questioned her. The ones who did she gave big, dim blue eyes and blamed it on whichever side they weren’t. She picked up a few names on her scuffle through the crowd to get this far.

And with everyone worried about a prisoner escaping, no-one was paying any attention to the prisoners they had safely penned up. They were locked in a huge empty storeroom, penned up behind chain link walls.

‘Bitch,’ one of them spat when she saw Charlie. Fear glittered hot in glassy eyes.

‘That’s nice, that is,’ Charlie muttered - surprising herself with one of Maggie’s old, frustrated catchphrases. She checked the lock. Simple enough to pick, and she had enough keys at this point...but time was wasting. ‘Step back.’

She put the gun to the lock, turned her head away and fired. The metal sheared apart, hot and twisted, and the padlock dropped to the ground. Charlie gave the door a kick to open it and hooked an impatient finger at the prisoners.

‘It’s a break-out,’ she said. ‘Move or stay. It’s up to you.’

For a second she thought everyone was going to stay. Then they were all trying to shove through the door at once, grabbing greedily at the weapons she’d left on the ground. She grabbed the few she saw with brands or tattoos - and what did it say of the world that they were the same mark of almost-trust now - and sent them towards the armory. Everyone else she led out of the building, cutting down the soldiers and reserves in their way and looting their bodies on their way past.

It was chaos. That helped.

 


	7. Pieces

_Unaffiliated Border Territories - 16 Months After the Blackout_

 

Strategy meetings in Charlotte Matheson’s militia were nothing like anything Bass would have allowed. No order, no structure...she was sitting on the floor playing with her Quartermaster’s baby, for crying out loud. He leaned back against the wall - glad to have a wall after a month in tents - and sipped whisky from a looted bottle,  listening without comment.

She didn’t trust him. Whenever he doubted her good judgement, he remembered that. This kinder, gentler militia wouldn’t work forever. Eventually she’d have to toughen up.

‘So, who of Neville’s officers is going to be most receptive,’ Charlotte asked, leaning over the baby to tickle its nose with a lock of hair.

Apparently not today.

Tommy absently scratched the brand on his arm, but didn’t hesitate to answer Charlotte.

‘Harris or Gainsborough,’ he said after a second. ‘Both are loyalist, neither like General Neville.’

Charlotte twisted around, raising a tawny eyebrow expectantly at Bass. ‘Which one?’

‘Gainsborough,’ he said after a second. ‘He was always soft as well. I can’t see him liking the Cubans tactics.’

She checked the info with Tommy, getting a quick nod in answer.

‘Then we need to arrange a meeting with him,’ she said. ‘Tommy, Lee? Find out his movements. Gayle, you worked out our supply run?’

‘By tomorrow,’ Gayle said, holding her arms out for the baby. ‘They changed patrols, I need to rejig the route.’

Reports given the others left. Tommy lingered, offering Charlotte a hand up, but she nudged him out the door.

‘Alone at last,’ Bass said when she turned to face him. ‘Will my reputation ever recover?’

She frowned at him, hands on her hips. ‘This isn’t a joke. We aren’t a joke.’

‘You can trust me, Charlotte. I want to see Neville dethroned as much as you do.’

She took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, the loose fabric of her shirt sliding distractingly over the curve of her breasts. Bass licked the seam of his lips, eyes flicking down to the freckled, shadowed cleavage.

‘I know,’ she said. He glanced up at her in surprise, trying to read the slanted smile half-curving her mouth. ‘Miles would never forgive you.'

He tilted his head in wry acknowledgement of that bit of insight. Just to see how she'd react, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She frowned and stepped back, but he interrupted before she could protest.

'So what then?'

Her mouth tightened, eyebrows furrowing over the bridge of her nose. Bass felt his thumb twitch with the urge to smooth them out. She was so cute, it verged on the ridiculous.

'You have to be...better,' she said, words spilling nervously off her tongue. 'If you get the militia back, you can't be like before. You can't make everything worse.'

He grinned at her. ‘Want to know a secret, Charlie?'

She tilted her head dubiously, staring up at him with big, blue eyes like she could see into his soul. Except she didn't look revolted enough for that.

'What?' she asked, drawing the word out warily.

For a second he was painfully reminded of his sisters, and felt vaguely dirty for his thoughts. They'd always sounded like that when they weren't sure they trusted what he was going to say.

'Being General Monroe wasn't all it was cracked up to be.'

It had been lonely, and cold. The back of his neck itching constantly with fear and paranoia, always on the lookout for the shift of secrecy in the eyes of the few he trusted – even a little. Desperate to stamp out every threat, but as executions because atrocity...it just made him more aware of why they all hated him.

He wasn't making excuses. He knew he didn't deserve Charlotte's second chance, but he was going to take it.

'You were fed, you were safe,' Charlotte said.

'I was scared,' Bass said. It was the truth, but it was the first time he'd ever admitted it to anyone. Charlotte hated him, but for this there was no judgement in her eyes. Maybe even sympathy. He didn't want that either, though, so he drew back. 'If you think you can do better, General Matheson, you're welcome to try. Only reason I'm not heading for California, is because Miles thinks you're true north.'

He left her there, eyebrows still knit together, and went to try and find a patrol to join.

 

By the looks of it, Santa Teresa hadn't been up to much to start with. The new gallows, raw wood bright and stinking of sap and piss, and the charred ruins of buildings – scattered along the main street like rotten teeth in a smile – had done nothing to improve it's appeal.

'This was just an example, hang a few who protest and burn down their houses,' Charlotte told Bass, sliding clumsily off her horse and tying it up outside the smoke-stained church. 'If they have to come back, if the tithe isn't paid, they raze the town. It's happened...three times?'

She glanced at Tommy who shook his head. 'Five, at least,' he said. 'Able-bodied to the work-camps, everyone else...well, not their problem.'

Charlotte unstrapped the bulging saddlebags from the horse, slinging the buckled strap over her shoulder. She headed up the stairs to the church, grabbing the rail for balance as she looked back at him. 'Was it like this before? Was this really what the rebels were fighting for?'

She looked genuinely curious. So – cautiously, questions about before had never been encouraged – did Tommy. Fuck, Bass realised, half of her militia wouldn't remember anything from before. The ones who did, it would be cartoons and kiddie ballet classes. The lie was right there in front, justify everything he'd done by saying at least it was better than what went before.

'Sometimes,' he said instead. 'The ideal of it, though? That was worth fighting for. That's what Miles and I were fighting for, to start with.'

Maybe he didn't want to lie if Miles was likely to find out, or maybe he just wanted to see Charlotte fall for himself instead of getting tripped on her way by him. It was all very well to have strategy meetings while playing with babies – eventually she'd have to start killing people.

For now she just looked thoughtful and let herself into the church. She glanced back at Bass again as he stepped across the threshold. He flashed her a grin. 'Waiting to see if I burst into flames.'

She stared at him for a second – looking startled enough that he wondered if she had expected that – but then she shrugged.

'Or God to strike you down,' she said. 'Looks like he believes in second chances too.'

'Yeah, well,' Bass said flatly. 'I don't believe in him.'

'My family did,' Tommy interrupted. He grinned at Charlotte's startled look – flashing a faintly smug look Bass' way now that he had her attention again. 'They were Hand of Godders. Mad bastards. Bad food, bad company, bad sex – God wouldn't have turned off the electricity if he wanted us to enjoy ourselves. We're lucky Father Ron is a bit more reasonable.'

'Don't get it myself,' Charlotte admitted as she walked up the aisle. 'My Dad never talked about God or anything like that.'

Yeah, well, Ben Matheson had even more blood on his soul than Bass did. It made sense he wouldn't want to think about any sort of afterlife.

Father Ron was a burly 60 year old with cropped grey hair, hands like a docker and a hug for Charlotte that made Bass twitch.

'Bless you, child,' he said taking the saddlebags and checking through them. Tins and jars, cured meat wrapped in greased paper and some vegetables. The breakfast of soaked jerky that Bass had choked down soured in his stomach. He had his suspicions that Rachel's pre-Blackout parenting involved a lot of setting Charlotte down to watch Disney's Robin Hood.

'Any news?' Charlotte asked, sitting down on the pew and resting her arms on the backrest in front.

Ron gave Bass a suspicious look. 'He's new.'

'I trust him.'

Brown eyes narrowed, sun-set wrinkles creasing. 'He has a familiar face.'

'Father Ron,' Charlotte said, quietly. 'I don't need your permission to recruit to my militia. We trust him, so can you.'

Something flickered through Ron's eyes at the word trust and he turned away, busying his hands with rebuckling the bags. Charlotte looked uneasy, but she hadn't spent as much time looking for the signifiers of betrayal as Bass had.

'What did you do,' he asked coldly.

Ron drew himself up and gave Bass a contemptuous look. 'I don't know what you mean. Maybe I should be asking you that question, Gen-'

Bass grabbed him by the throat, fingers digging into the loose skin, and shoved him against the pulpit. He pulled a gun and stuck it against Ron's stomach.

'Who have you been talking to, Ron?'

'No-one!' Ron spluttered, eyes wide and white-rimmed all the way around. He rolled them towards Charlotte pleadingly. 'Charlie, you can't believe this man over me? How long have we been friends.'

'Months,' Charlie said, standing up. She chewed her lower lip nervously, folding it between her teeth. 'Monroe?'

'He looked guilty as sin when you said trust.'

'That doesn't mean anything,' Ron spluttered, dragging at Bass' forearm. 'Thomas, please, make them listen.'

Tommy stepped forward and then stopped when Charlotte held up her hand. 'There was no-one about,' she said in a slow, thoughtful voice. 'No children, no-one clearing up the mess.' She stopped and looked around. 'Where's Maisie? She's usually here to get her arthritis medication by now. Father Ron, what did you do?'

The ruddy colour drained from the priest's face. 'Nothing, Charlie. Please, you have to believe me.'

She put her hand on Bass' forearm. 'Let him go.'

He groaned inside. This was not the time her to be a bleeding heart. 'Charlotte, he's lying.'

'I know, let him go.'

Surprise loosened his fingers as much as anything else, letting Ron struggle free and scramble out of the way. The priest rubbed his throat with thick fingers, his eyes still desperate.

'Come on,' Charlotte said, tugging at Bass' arm. 'We need to go.'

He stayed put, staring at the priest. 'And him. You can't just let him get away with betraying you, Charlotte. You have to make an example of him.'

'We are,' she said. 'Trust me.'

First time she'd said that to him. He supposed he owed it to her. Holstering his gun he followed her down the aisle at a jog. They were outside when the bell in tower started ringing, a frantic, jangling summons. Bass snarled and turned on his heel, but Charlotte grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

He almost hit her. Charlotte didn't notice, but Tommy saw it – his mouth going tight with disapproval.

'We kill him, nobody believes he's a traitor,' Charlotte said quickly, shoving Bass towards his horse. 'Besides, the Cubans will send him to a work camp for failing them and....and kill whichever of his family they took hostage. We don't need to be the bad guys this time.'

They fled down ahead of an approaching cloud of dust from the North, splitting up as they hit the border. The Cubans caught up with them at the river. Bass was pretty sure the man leading them was Jason Neville in a shiny new uniform. From the stricken look on Charlotte's face, she thought so do. A lucky bullet took Bass' horse out from under him as it skidded down the bank. It screamed and dropped, pinning him under it as it skidded down into the water.

'Bass!'

It would – he thought woozily – be the first bloody time she used his name, just as he was about to drown. Then she was there, dragging him up and onto the back of the horse – all small, strong hands and wet tangled hair.

On the other side Charlotte kicked a can into the water, a black slick of rainbow sheened oil leaking out of it and tossed a match onto it. The wall of fire wouldn't last long, but the Cubans horses weren't going near it while it burned. Time enough for Bass and Charlotte to get away.

They scrambled off the horse in the shadow of a cairn of rocks, damp and breathless from the run. Charlotte had a bloody cut on her cheekbone he hadn't registered her getting and her hands were shaking as she tried to untangle her knotted ponytail.

'Here,' he said, stepping in behind her. It was a measure of trust that she only twitched a little as he buried his fingers in the mess, picking the sodden knot free and working the worse of the matts loose. Her hair was heavy against his hands and smelled of blood and dark water. His body was still humming with adrenaline, trembling down his fingers and against the nape of Charlotte's neck, and it wouldn't take much to redirect it from fight to fuck.

He wanted to. He wanted all her kindness, all that generous heart for himself – and if he had Charlotte, then Miles would never leave again. They'd be family.

All he had to do was just -

Charlotte turned around and shoved him against the wall of rocks, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Her lips were hot and salty with sweat and blood, her fingers were hard against the nape of his neck as she dragged his head down.

He wasn't the only one with excess adrenaline, he guessed as she wrenched impatiently at his belt. It was strange, her hand on his cock. Most of the women he'd fucked the last few years had soft, smooth hands; the men had rough ones and sword calluses on their fingers. Charlotte had soft hands, but with a different scattering of calluses.

His cock was already halfway to hard, it didn't take long for stroking fingers and hungry, impatient kisses to get him all the way there. She made a pleased sound – apparently he passed muster – and he got her jeans open and shoved down over slim thighs. Charlotte kicked them rest of the way off herself, leaving them tangled in dust.

There were things he should probably ask – but he didn't. Bass kissed her instead and … damn, she was short. She never seemed short when she was glaring at him or bossing people about, but she only came up to his shoulder. He picked her up, hands cupped under her ass. Charlotte squeaked in surprise, hands grabbing his shoulders and legs going around his waist.

He was pretty sure he was too old for this, but fuck it...it was impressive. If that had been her ex, he wanted any comparisons to run in his favour.

When was the last time he bothered with impressing anyone, he wondered. Charlotte distracted him with a whimper and a squirm, her pussy wet against his stomach. He hooked his arm under her, supporting her weight on his hips and forearm, and guided his cock inside her.

She was wet and tight, muffling a gasp against his throat, and  - from the way her nails were digging into his shoulders – not entirely sure he wasn't going to drop her. Bass twisted around, bracing her against the rock wall, and thrust into her. Her legs tightened around him, heels digging into his thighs, and her hands wandered carefully off his shoulders and down his back.

It was fast and hungry, any control he tried to hang onto undermined by Charlotte's eager squirming and   gasped murmurs of his name. His thrusts were hard, hips clashing as he ground her against the wall, and he left soft-edged bruises on her throat. A chain of hickey's along her collarbone and onto the upper curve of her breasts.

He almost forgot not to come inside her. The women General Monroe slept with dealt with those consequences themselves, but Charlotte probably didn't know how. She certainly wasn't worried about as she whined in protest when he pulled out. He spilled himself in his own hand, a few quick strokes bringing him the rest of the way, and brought Charlie off with his fingers. She whimpered into his throat, body clenching around his fingers, and clung to him like he was the last solid thing in the world.

Once she stopped shuddering he lowered her back down onto her feet. She had to hang onto him a second before her knees were steady enough to take the weight. Her head rested against his shoulder, hair tangling over his arm. He kissed her temple, hands still curled around her ass, and waited for her brain to catch up with her hormones.

'I think I have road rash on my backside.'

It wasn't quite the complaint he'd expected. He glanced over her shoulder and down, rubbing his thumbs over the pinked skin. 'It's not too bad.' It probably wasn't a good idea to ask. 'No second thoughts?'

She pushed him away and got dressed, hopping into her jeans distractingly. 'I've probably had better ideas,' she admitted. 'But at the minute, if I don't end the world – again – or get anyone killed? I'm not going to worry about it too much. We should go, the Cubans don't stay on this side of the border long. It should be safe to head back to camp.'

Bass hooked his fingers into her belt and pulled her towards him, looking down at her. 'Where we'll do this again.'

She narrowed her eyes at him. 'I still don't like you.'

'But that?' he asked, tilting his head towards the wall. 'That was good.'

Charlotte actually blushed, pink showing through her tan. 'That was OK.'

He snorted, grinning at her. She gave him that odd look again and bit her lip.

'You're still you,' she said, shrugging. 'I'm still me. It's hard to hate you – you don't fart brimstone and drink baby blood – but this? This is too weird.'

She stepped away and he tugged her back, breathing in the smell of sex on her. 'One kiss, then.'

'No.'

 


	8. All the Same

_Columbus - Four Months After the Second Blackout_

 

Charlie was wrenching the escape hatch in the fence wide enough to let a heavily pregnant girl with bloody shoulders squeeze through when someone grabbed her arm.

‘The kennels,’ the boy said. He pushed much mended spectacles up a swollen, unset nose. ‘There’s about 15 of us still in the kennels.’

Of course. Charlie shoved him through after the pregnant girl and gave the treeline a longing look. It was so close to working, and she’d known coming in that they wouldn’t be able to save everyone. She really wanted to though.

She grabbed a couple of the branded prisoners - she trusted rebels more, but had to admit the militia training was more...viciously thorough.

‘Cover me as I get to the kennels?’ she said, jerking her head towards the low slung hut. ‘If you need to go, go.’

The militia glanced at each other, then lifted their weapons. ‘Fuck that,’ the oldest said. ‘The militia leave no man behind.’

One of them came with her, the other two stayed behind in the cover of the blood-stained treadwheel, raking gunfire over the front of the building. Charlie crouched at the base, breath scratchy in her throat as she waited her chance.

A bullet caught one of the US officers in the throat and he dropped flailing. Before another could take his place, Charlie darted out across the open ground. Her heart was in her throat, in her ears, as she staggered her run across the bare dirt. Gunfire cracked in her ears and clods of earth exploded in front and behind her, hitting her legs. She dove for the cover of the kennel, sliding over the dirt in a muddy, belly-scaping heap.

Someone was screaming inside, others were swearing and hammering at the door.

‘We’ll get you out!’ Charlie promised, scrambling onto her knees. ‘Just hold on.’

She peeked around the edge of the kennel, jerking back as a bullet nearly clipped her nose, and then hoisted the semi-automatic she’d grabbed around. Balancing it on the edge of the roof she stuttered fire along the front of the building while her back-up sprinted her way.

‘Get the door,’ she told him as he flopped down next to her.

He slicked sweat-wet hair back from his face with a nervous hand, jerking his chin down in agreement. They both took a second to catch their breath - and for Charlie to fumble her way through a magazine change like she had never seen a gun before.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

He nodded. She propped herself up on her knees, a volley of gunfire sending the soldiers who’d ventured out diving for cover. The ex-militia boy combat crawled under the line of fire and jimmied the lock off the door with his knife, screws screeching through old, wet wood.

‘Get to the fence,’ he yelled, dragging people out and shoving them down. ‘Head for the trees.’

Ten people scrambled out - red-faced and bloody-backed.

‘There were supposed to be 15,’ Charlie yelled, voice cracking over the gunfire.

Ex-militia glanced in, grimaced and shook his head. ‘Dead. Nobody lasts long in here.’

It felt like failure, even though Charlie knew she couldn’t have done anything. She gestured towards the fence. ‘Go. I’ll follow.’

He went, jinking back and forth like a spooked rabbit. It looked good, but Charlie had skewered her share of running rabbits. She pinned down the shooters she could see, bullets chipping off concrete and smashing windows.

Then it was her turn - again. It was harder to get her legs going the second time, exhaustion turned to lead in her muscles. Miles would have done it though. So she pushed herself to run, half-falling all the way, over the pocked ground.

By the time she got there, one of the boys providing cover was on the ground. Blood ran like river from where his shoulder used to be.

‘Go,’ he told them, bloody teeth and red in the corners of his mouth.

There was no saving him - not with a bag of opiates and antibiotics. Charlie knelt next to him, squeezing his knee.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He winked at her and staggered up, firing madly at the building. Charlie swore and ran for the fence, scrambling gracelessly through. The other two grabbed her arms, hauled her up and dragged her along.

‘Wait,’ she said, wrenching free.

She lunged to her abandoned hide and hauled her bow. It wasn’t as good as the one she’d carried from Sylvania Estates, but it shot straight enough. The weight made her injured arm ache as she lifted it, slotting the wrapped bolt into place.

‘Here,’ she said, fumbling the matches out of her pocket and tossing it to over. ‘Light it, please.’

She took aim, waiting as the matches sparked and died and finally flared. The lick of flame caught on the threads of the gas-soaked rag and it ignited quickly.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Charlie squinted along the sights, adjusting her aim with twitches.  Hold and fire.

The bolt arced through the night and then dropped. Charlie waited, chewing her lip. The bolt missed its mark, smacking into the broken wall. She swore to herself, but the rags frayed and dropped, catching on the rough canvas of her bag.

It burned quickly. Charlie turned and ran, falling into step with the others. The explosion rattled the trees and rumbled underfoot. Charlie tripped and fell, her arm folding under her instead of catching her. Someone hauled her back up again.

‘What the hell was that?’ they yelled in her ear, fuzzy through the concussion hum vibrating through her eardrums.

‘Military grade explosives wrapped around a mixture of frag and tear grenades,’ she yelled back, swiping her hair out of her face with the back of her arm. Her voice cracked dryly. ‘It won’t level the place, but the people inside won’t be happy.’

The other two laughed - a bark of mean humour - and dragged her along. ‘Couldn’t happen to nicer folk.’

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. The High Road

_Unaffiliated Border Territories - 17 Months after the Second Blackout_

 

'Sir?'

Technically Miles didn't merit the title right now – he was Charlie's advisor, but she was pretty lax about rank -  it was an occasional advantage, though. Besides he was used to it again. He glanced up from cleaning his gun, wiping oil on a rag. 'What?'

'General Matheson needs you at the command tent.'

Miles reconstructed his gun with quick, precise hand motions, standing up and reholstering it at his hip. 'Why?'

The soldier shrugged. 'She didn't say, sir.'

Miles dismissed the boy, shrugged on his uniform jacket and headed across the old gas station lot to the low, dirt-coloured tent pitched against the back wall. Bass was waiting for him, idly shredding some local vegetation.

'What is it?' Miles asked.

'They grabbed Gainsborough,' Bass said, a tilt of his head inviting Miles to join in the disapproval.

'Great.' He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. 'He's hardly going to be receptive to talking to us now, is he?'

Miles had never met the man – or if he had, it hadn't made an impact – but kidnapping rarely got negotiations off to a good start.

'We made our share of mistakes.'

'They cost us,' Miles said. 'I don't want Charlie to end up back here, twenty years down the road.'

'Fifteen,' Bass corrected. He flashed that grin when Miles looked at him. 'We're not that old. At least, I'm not.'

'We're the same age.'

'I'm a year younger than you.'

Miles shoved his hair back from his face – it was getting too long again, unmanageable, and squinted at Bass. He looked...cheerful.

'What's put you in a good mood,' he asked suspiciously. It was, in his experience, never a good thing when Bass was happy without a drink in his hand or a woman in his lap.

Bass shrugged. 'You know me,' he said mildly. 'I'm a man of simple tastes.'

He walked over to the tent, pushing the flap back for Miles to duck under it.

Two of Charlie's soldiers were cuffing the militia officer – Reserves now, Miles supposed – to a chair. The man had lost weight recently – his jacket bagged at the shoulders and hip, the sleeves sliding low over his hands. It seemed likely the bag over his head was something new too.

Charlie stood nearby, pulling the hood off her hair and wiping the black from around her eyes. She glanced over at the entrance, a quick smile lighting up her face when she saw Miles. A slim hand waved them over to the corner.

Too late to stave off disaster, Miles supposed, he'd just have to see what he could salvage. Charlie's eyes flicked past him to Bass and she frowned, a shadow crossing her face. She didn't have to worry, there was nothing in it for Bass if he betrayed him. He hadn't forgiven his brother – still didn't know if he even could – but he believe that Bass had never cared about the Republic.

Charlie ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back into a severe knot that only made her look younger to Miles. A nod got the hood tugged off Gainsborough's head, leaving him blinking owlishly through a black eye. He focused on Charlie and a smile twitched over his mouth.

'General Matheson, I assume,' he said. 'You know, I always heard you had a set of balls. Brass ones, by all accounts.'

Charlie hooked her thumbs in her belt. 'I heard the same about you. You just can't get good information these days.'

Gainsborough chuckled. He shifted in his seat, making the cuffs rattle. 'That's true, otherwise you'd know that I'm not a traitor. There's no point trying to convince me to turn my coat. General Neville is the leader of the Republic, and I'm a loyal soldier.'

Charlie nodded.

'I know.'

Silence. Gainsborough finally sighed and asked, 'Go on then, tell me why I'm here.'

Charlie turned slightly, nodding to Bass. 'He's going to convince you.'

The thought of torture was the first to cross Gainsborough's mind, Miles could see it in his face. Then Bass stepped out of the shadows, shoulders straightening and hands clasping behind his back as he visibly donned General Monroe.

'Captain Gainsborough,' he said. 'It's good to see you again – my apologies about the circumstances, but I'm sure you understand.'

The colour blanched out Gainsborough's face, leaving the bruises black against pallid skin. 'General Monroe? Sir? I thought you were...'

'Dramatically dead?' Miles asked, stepping forward. He crooked his mouth when Gainsborough stared at him. 'Captain. The original General Matheson.'

Charlie frowned at him, but Gainsborough was laughing and shaking his head with a mixture of relief and amazement. Matheson and Monroe - the names had weight, the partnership had history. It meant that Gainsborough was already half bought into their plan. He nodded more than he shook his head as they talked – rubbing his wrists after Charlie quietly ordered him uncuffed.

Halfway through the discussion Charlie coughed. 'Miles?'

'What?'

'Where are you getting these soldiers for these raids?'

He grimace. 'Charlie. This isn't the time. I've done this before. I'm...'

'General Matheson, founding father of the Republic and all the rest,' Charlie said. He glared at her. She stared back, eyes steady and jaw set. 'But this isn't your miltia. It's mine. They are my responsibility. So if you want our help, you go through me.'

He grimaced and took her shoulder, pulling her aside. 'Charlie, this isn't a game. Neville is a dangerous man-'

She licked her lips and looked away, a muscle jumping in her jaw. 'Fuck you, Miles. Neville? Neville's a placeholder. If we play it right he'll swear his undying loyalty to Monroe again and flip like a top. The Cubans are the ones we need to worry about. You've not seen the work camps, they're too guarded now for our raids, or the 'cleansings' of towns that don't show appropriate loyalty. I have.'

She stopped, swallowing hard and glancing past him to Gainsborough.

'This isn't a game to any of us, Miles,' she said flatly. Her voice dropped to a barely audible murmur. 'And lets be honest, you and Bass don't have the best track record with power, do you?'

He swallowed the sting of that – she wasn't wrong – and stepped back.

Charlie stared at him a second longer, mouth twisting unhappily, then took a breath. She turned to look at Gainsborough and Bass.

'If you want our help?' she said. 'It is going to be different. We are going to make something that actually works...a Republic for everyone, not just one man. Any man.'

'Idealistic,' Gainsborough said.

'Someone should be.'

He blinked and then nodded. 'Maybe.' He checked Bass' expression. 'Sir? You willing to work with her?'

'It's weird,' Bass said, giving Charlie a sly smile. 'That doesn't mean it won't work.'

They left Gainsborough to think about their offer. Charlie paused on her way out of the tent, looking back at him.

'Jason Neville,' she said.

Gainsborough nodded. 'Captain Neville.'

'Is he OK?'

'Why do you care.'

'I don't...but I used to.'

Gainsborough considered that and apparently decided it was acceptable. 'He's angry, driven – really hates you.'

'Yeah.'

Charlie nodded her thanks and took her leave. She stalked away, turned and came back, poking her finger into Miles' chest.

'Don't do that again. I love you, Miles.' The sentiment crushed his chest, even though he knew she didn't mean it the way his heart wanted her to. 'But don't ever do that again.'

'I don't want you to have to do this,' he said.

'But I am.'

Miles set his jaw. 'Yeah,' he said flatly. 'You are.'

He walked away from her. She didn't follow him. Miles hesitated, looking back, and saw Bass offering her one of the weeds he'd been playing with. If you squinted and had never seen a proper bouquet before – or spent on one during an ill-fated attempt to have a normal relationship – it could pass for a flower.

Shit.

Charlie wrinkled her nose, but took it... She almost smiled, ducking her head and rolling her eyes - and she'd called him Bass. Not Monroe.

Son-of-a-bitch.

He stormed back to his tent and packed his bag to go. Except once he'd buckled it shut, he just sat on the cot with his head in his hands and went nowhere. Maybe Charlie didn't need him any more and maybe Bass was a prick – but they were all he had.

Nora was gone – and he'd never quite managed to be what she wanted anyhow – and it sounded like Rachel was probably better off without him right now. Always had been, he supposed. Ben was dead and all the friends he'd had left – that he knew how to find – he'd gotten killed.

'Fuck my life,' he muttered, kicking his pack over and emptying it out to find the half-bottle of whisky he had left. He'd been well on his way to drinking himself to death before – maybe he could get there before Charlie and Bass starting holding hands in public. Livers couldn't regenerate that quick, could they?

His resolve lasted a week, a worrying amount of empty bottles and one successful skirmish with the Jason Neville's Reserves. The boy had a scar now, but was as single-minded about Charlie as ever. It was just now he wanted to kill her, not kiss her.

Miles should get the details of that.

Nerves humming with excess energy, balls aching with that misfire connection of sex/violence, he finished his whisky, slapped Gainsborough on the shoulder and stumbled back to his tent. He wasn't really planning on fucking Bass, but if he was there...

Except, he wasn't the only one with that idea. He froze in the entrance of the tent, not sure whether he wanted to clench his fists or palm his cock, and stared at the tangle of tanned and pale limbs on Bass' cot. Charlie's hair was loose, tangled around Bass' fingers, and her jeans were still tangled around one ankle.

Something had made her laugh, breathless, muffled giggles, and Bass was assiduously kissing the sound off her lips like he could taste it.

'Enough,' she protested, wrapping her leg over his hip and pulling him down. 'Just fuck me already.'

'When I'm ready,' Bass said, voice rasping with amusement and heat. 'Jesus, woman, haven't you ever heard of foreplay.'

Charlie huffed impatiently and shoved her hand down between their bodies, grabbing something that made Bass groan and shift on top of her. The long muscles in his back flexed under his skin.

'Besides,' he said. 'I'm waiting for Miles to decide if he is coming in or going out.'

'What?' Charlie spluttered. She lifted her head up and looked over Bass' shoulder, eyes going unbelievably huge when she saw him. 'Shit. Get off me. Bass, move your ass.'

She shoved hard at his shoulders, but the heavy sprawl of him wasn't that easy to move. Guilt raked through Miles' gut like nails, an old, familiar voice that sometimes sounded like Ben and sometimes more like Rachel. What the fuck is wrong with you? She was his niece, he shouldn't be....he should have left when he had the chance.

'I'll go,' he said, voice scraping in his throat. He gave a harsh bark of disbelieving laughter, finally remembering to throw his hand up over his eyes. 'Sorry. Fuck, Charlie, I'm sorry.'

'Miles,' she protested, then ran out of words.

'Tell him to stay,' Bass said.

'What?

'If you want him too, tell him to stay.'

Charlie stopped wriggling and shoving, going still as she thought that through. 'You wouldn't...I don't know? What?'

It wasn't a no – and god, he knew what was wrong with him, knew what he was. He was just sick of caring. Every time he tried to do the right thing, he fucked it up. Saving Danny, dethroning Monroe, turning the power back on – none of it had worked. All he'd done was get the people he cared about – Alec, Nora, Kip, Jim – killed.

Miles Matheson wasn't a hero, no matter how much he liked seeing that in Charlie's eyes. Maybe it was time to accept that. He let the tent flap close behind him and walked over to kneel down beside the cot, curling his hand around the back of Bass' neck.

It was a slow, thorough kiss – tongue and lips and teeth. The rub of the beard – finally soft enough not to scrape like they were trying to start a fire with their stubble – and the dry taste of adrenaline and hunger. It was the first time they'd kissed like that since Miles left, the first time it had been more than just a reluctant clash of lips to admit it wasn't just hate.

A soft, throaty little sound escaped Charlie's lips. Miles broke the kiss with Bass, one final bite to the curve of his lip as a promise for later, and looked down at Charlie.

He'd never really thought of her as his niece, he admitted to himself. Family, yes. Blood though? In his mind his niece was forever that skinny little four year old that chewed the collars of tops slobbery and hadn't picked up yet that girls weren't meant to find farts funny. She was dead and memorialised.

Charlie was the only person in the world he hadn't been able to push away.

'Can I stay?' he asked, leaning down until he was closer to kissing her than not. Her breath was warm and shaky against his lips, her eyes wary but dark with awareness. She licked her lip, the tip of her tongue bumping Miles mouth. Electricity jagged down his throat, on a line straight to his balls, and any chance he'd had of salvation went with it.

He kissed her like it was the last kiss he'd ever get, frantic to know her mouth and pressing her down into the pillows. It was him kissing her for a long, scary minute – his mind scrabbling for a way to redact this, shove it under the carpet – but when he pulled away, her hand twisted in his hair and dragged him back onto the kiss.

Her tongue in his mouth and Bass kissing his neck, impatient hands dragging him onto the bed with him. He stripped/was stripped – Charlie giggling again as his shirt ripped, boots kicked over the floor and jeans shoved down and forgotten about until Bass caught his foot in them.

'The cot's too fucking small,' Bass grumbled, nuzzling at Charlie's throat.

She snorted. 'I saw your tent at the Tower, I'm not making my soldiers cart a double bed and a desk around.'

Miles could hear the nerves wobbling under the bravado. He tugged her back to him, settling her so she was straddling his hips. His cock nudged against her backside, and something tight and self-loathing in his chest loosened when she didn't flinch or squirm away. 'You don't have to do this,' he said. His fingers trailed up her thigh from knee to the soft curls between her thighs. She was already wet, pressing down against his fingers with a whimper when he slid them along the slick folds of her sex.

'Any time you want to stop, any thing you don't wanna do.'

Her hands explored his chest, scratching through the scruff of chest hair and touching each scar like it was a tally.

'I wanted to do this back in Philly,' she said, leaning down and kissing his chest.

Her tongue flicked over his nipple, toying the nub of flesh to hardness, then she moved up to scrape her teeth over the narrow scar on his collarbone. A groan rolled out of him and made her grin against his shoulder, mouth stretching against his skin.

Bass kissed her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her and cupping her breasts in his hands. He tilted an eyebrow at Miles in suggestion and Miles agreed with a twitch of his mouth. The last thing he wanted was to scare Charlie off by pushing her too fast, or pressure her into doing something she didn't want.

He rolled them both over in one not-so-smooth move – Bass was right, the cot was too small and had more hard edges than he'd ever noticed before. Charlie's hair tangled around them, catching in his fingers, and under his elbows.

Warm lips kissed the line of his back, tracing the knobs of his spine, and Bass ran broad, rough hands down his arms. A solid thigh nudged against his.

'You sure?' he asked Charlie. He rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone. 'I ain't gonna get any easier to get on with.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Stop asking. I have a militia outside if I yell.'

'You don't do you?' Miles asked, the thought of a dozen grey-jacketed teenagers staring at his naked ass occurring.

'It's more of a mewling sound,' Bass told him, short-circuiting his growl by reaching between his legs to grab his cock. He guided it into Charlie, fingers slicking her wetness along the length of the shaft, and she lifted her hips eagerly. Miles braced his arms on the bed, strain trembling through his forearms, and let them set the pace. For now. The breath he sucked in tasted of sex and Charlie and Bass, a fantasy so bizarre he'd never given it brain time.

Fuck, he used to be better at this game.

Bass laughed darkly and ran his thumb along the tight thread of flesh from Miles’ balls to his asshole, pressing wet and slippery into him. Thumb was followed by spit slick fingers, a rough pad bumping his prostate to cramp intense pleasure through his groin and thighs.  

A ragged breath scraped out of Miles and his patience slithered away from him like water. He grabbed Charlie's thigh, lifting her knee, and thrust into her slowly, her body squeezing tight around him like a hand. She squirmed impatiently under him, arousal flushing her pale skin from belly to breasts, and stretched up to skim wet, ticklish kisses along his jaw and throat.

'Miles, I want you. Please? God, please?'

He gave in with a shudder, burying himself inside her with one, quick thrust. She gasped and bit her lip, hand sliding down to touch herself. Once he was still, Bass hooked an arm over his chest and his cock pressed against – into – Miles.

Under them both, Charlie gasped – her body fluttering around Miles’ cock – as the weight settled on her.

The other times they had done this, it had been with woman in the middle (Sierra, never Rachel – the closest had been a drunken grind in a club, and Nora a couple of times). It was a bit harder to find the rhythm this way – or maybe they were just out of practice – but after a few bumpy moments (that made Charlie giggle, the sound vibrating around Miles' cock) they got it.

Bass' thrusts drove Miles deeper into Charlie, her hands digging into the cot or Miles as she shuddered and, yeah, those were little mewling sounds she made. Miles thrust back against Bass, ass hitting his thighs, and shuddered as a shift in angle nudged his prostate again.

'God,' he groaned. 'That's...'

He dropped his head down, forehead resting against Charlie's and clenched his jaw, struggling to hang onto control. Neither Bass – using his hip as a handle for leverage – nor Charlie – kissing the sweat off his shoulder were helping, and he knew Bass was just being a jackass.

Rough fingers nudged his head around for a kiss, mouth brushing down to catch his lower lip between his teeth. He slid the kiss on down to Charlie, her hand sliding up the heavy muscle of his arm to his shoulder.

'Charlotte,' Bass said, dropping a kiss on her knuckles. 'My beautiful General.'

Her nails dug in, leaving marks. Deliberate? Maybe, Charlie was better with people than she knew. Like her...

Fuck, no. He didn't need his brain going there, keep it here – kissing the clean line of Charlie's throat down to the gritty bump of an old break in her collarbone. He traced the shape with his tongue and hooked her leg up on his arm. The shift in angle made her tighter and opened her up so he could thrust deeper, breathing ragged in his chest.

Charlie swore, soft and heartfelt and, fuck, where had she leant some of those words?, her body arching under Miles in a tight, thrumming line as her orgasm clenched around his cock. He clenched his jaw, some of those same words prickling on his tongue, as he struggled to hang on until he pulled out. He came on her stomach, pale against lightly tanned skin, and Bass dragged him up and back. Both of them were kneeling on the bed, Charlie watching as Bass thrust into him with hard, stuttering thrusts.

They ended up sprawled over Charlie in a sticky tangle of legs and arms hanging off the edge of the cot. Bass claimed the lion's share of the mattress – it was his cot – and Charlie eventually untangled herself.

'I need to make sure nothing has gone wrong, check in with the patrols,' she said, scrambling into her clothes. The more clothes she got on, the more awkward she obviously felt. She hesitated, picking tangles out of her hair, and then smiled at them. Not the open, joyful smile Miles was used to, but for a wary smile it was bright enough.

'No one's dead,' she said, shrugging.  'And it doesn't sound like the world has ended.'

Then she was gone.

Miles had no idea what that meant. Hopefully, he’d have a chance to find out later.

 


	10. Never Be the Same

_Zanesville - Four Months After the Second Blackout_

 

Half the prisoners didn’t stop running, disappearing into the woods to find their own way home or just away. The rest took shelter in an abandoned town, huddled in a stripped out cafe as Charlie passed out what few medical supplies they could spare.

30 people, if you couldn’t the two pregnant girls. Charlie was pretty sure they’d only stayed because they couldn’t walk any further. She got them bottles of water and wondered if anyone had any idea how to deliver a baby. They were both huge, and the closest Charlie had come to birthing a baby was dragging Jakie Graham’s ewes in for him.

She took a couple of the able-bodied - two militia, one rebel - out scavenging. There wasn’t much to be found these days, but they found some old blankets and shabby clothes, stripping the houses of cushions and pillows. One of the militia guys - Tommy, Charlie reminded herself - found a treasure trove of old tins in the back of a burned out cafe.

‘Pot luck,’ Charlie said, back in their temporary camp, lining the tins up on a table. ‘We used to have this all the time when I was a kid.’

Her pull was a tin of sickly-sweet fruit pieces, the syrup crystallised around the edges in crunchy, fruit-tart clumps. Charlie scraped them off with her nails and sucked them clean. She finished and looked up. Everyone in the room looked back.

‘So, what next, sir?’ Tommy asked.

‘Sir?’ Charlie protested out of habit, crinkling her nose.

Tommy nodded at her arm, bared by her shed jacket. ‘You were militia.’

‘I was a Rebel more,’ she corrected him. ‘I’m not a sir.’

‘Who are you then?’ Someone asked, voice rising anonymously out of the crowd ‘Why’d you help us?’

‘I’m Charlie Matheson,’ she said. ‘I-’

‘Like General Matheson?’ Tommy said, eyes widening and looking impressed. ‘General Monroe’s lover?’

‘The leader of the Rebels?’

‘The Butcher of Baltimore?’

‘My uncle,’ Charlie said quickly, daunted at the press of expectation suddenly filling the room. ‘I’m just Charlie.’

Tommy scratched his chin and glanced at the Rebel he’d been working with. ‘I figure we don’t have to tell everyone that.’

‘General Matheson,’ the Rebel said, nodding.

Charlie wiped her hands on her legs. ‘There’s 30 of us,’ she said. ‘And not everyone is going to want to fight.’

It turned out she was wrong about that - the room erupting in protest and oaths of loyalty. One of the pregnant girls levered herself up, using one of the other girl’s shoulder as a prop. Pretty girl - very pretty - and Charlie couldn’t think of any reason the soldiers would grab a girl who was already pregnant.

‘Maybe I can’t fight - yet,’ she said, putting her hand on her stomach. ‘But I want to do anything I can to help.’

Someone else popped up - the boy with the broken nose and glasses, ‘I don’t care whose side you were on before,’ he said, the sweep of his hand taking in the whole room. ‘We were here, we survived. Then they come in and start acting like...like we should be grateful to them? Like we should bend our neck so they don’t fucking strain themselves putting the boot on it? I didn’t like Monroe, but at least he went through it.’

Agreement rolled around the room.

‘There’s a work-camp at Trenton,’ the Rebel boy said, scratching his tattooed wrist.

Tommy spat on the ground. ‘On a goddamn memorial.’

‘Not far from here.’

‘I’m not a general,’ Charlie said firmly. ‘And we need to do some training first, but...yeah, Trenton’s a good place to start.’

 


	11. I'll Follow You

_Trenton - Three years after the Second Blackout_

It hadn’t been easy, but for once the officers of the militia were all in agreement. They couldn’t meet with General Blanchard wearing jeans and work camp jackets as uniforms. Charlie had finally agreed, on one condition. There were no M’s on the new uniforms.

Miles finished buttoning his jacket and looked over at Charlie. The commanding General of the Republic militia stood in front of the scavenged mirror, tall and slim in grey with her hair styled severely back from her face. If she wasn’t yanking irritably at her collar, she’d have cut quite a commanding figure.

‘I look stupid,’ she said.

‘We all look stupid together,’ he said. ‘Bass was right, Blanchard likes a bit of pomp. He’ll not take us seriously until we look like we take it seriously. It’ll be worth it, if he comes on board.’

‘I know,’ Charlie sighed. ‘I just...last time I was in Trenton, we were 30 half-starved kids and I kept telling everyone I wasn’t a general. Now...’

‘Now you’ve united two-thirds of what is left of America,’ Miles said.

‘That’s if Blanchard comes on-board,’ she hedged nervously.

‘He will. Unless...’ He stalled. It had been two months, and he couldn’t bring himself to put the issue into words. Once he did, he wouldn’t be able to take them back. Charlie was looking at him with worry pinching the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t fair to let her go in blind. ‘What if he knows about us Charlie?’

He expected to see doubt dawn on her face, instead she relaxed. Those slim, freshly uniformed shoulders rose in a shrug.

‘If they don’t like it, they can vote me out,’ she said. Walking over she stood up on her toes and kissed him, her lips sliding into a smile against his. ‘We’ll make Bass’ happy, go west and find a beach in California.’

Miles caught her hips and pulled her in close, murmuring ‘that sounds fun’ into the sweetness of her mouth. It wouldn’t happen though. Charlie’s people would accept him and Bass as the price of her - if they couldn’t call her bluff. Miles could understand that.

 


	12. Epilogue

Lexington: Capital of the New American Government - Three years Two Months after the Second Blackout

 

Tom snarled and stalked over the polished, inlaid wooden floor to the fire, throwing the balled up proclamation into the flames. It sparked and flared, ink burning with a sharp, herbal smell. The muscles in Tom's jaw twitched spasmodically as he watched it.

'The goddamn Republic has claimed another state,' he said through stiff lips. 'That lickspittle Blanchard has bent the neck to lick your ex's pussy along with every other man she's met.'

Jason swallowed the protest that clotted in his throat, rubbing the livid scar on the side of his head – the pressure of his fingers kicking off another of his skull-cracking headaches, or maybe that was just listening to Dad. When would he stop wanting to defend Charlie, he wondered bleakly. He hated her – she'd never loved him, she'd been playing him all along – but the words were still there.

'They've got what's left of Georgia, the dubious loyalty of three tribes from the Plains and Blanchard is about as trustworthy as a ferret on cocaine,' he said. His voice even sounded different to him now – although mom said that was his imagination. 'The US Government is hardly quaking in its boots.'

Tom turned and gave him a hard look, a sneer lifting his mouth at the corner.

'You actually believe that?' he asked.

'What?'

'Just because they let you dress up in a hand-me-down uniform, doesn't mean they're telling the truth,' Tom said in disgust. 'They're a bunch of organised thugs and torturers who've got ideas above their station, and they're facing Monroe and those eternal pains in my ass, the Mathesons.'

'If they aren't the government,' Jason said angrily. 'Why would we follow them.'

'Because they would have crushed us,' Tom snapped, crossing the floor in long angry strides. He jabbed his finger into Jason's chest. 'I had 100 men whose loyalty I could maybe – maybe – trust, and you. What we were going to do?'

Jason pushed his hand away. 'What difference does it make? It's too late now.'

That look of contempt again. 'Too late, boy? I have valuable information about the Cubans' movements and strategy. That girl of yours– the one thing no-one says about her is that she's stupid. I can leverage this into protection for us.'

'That's treason,' Jason said. 'You could be sent to the work camps for that, mom too.'

Tom gave a twitchy rictus grin of a smile and shook his head. 'Boy, no wonder that girl left you for dead. She has bigger balls than you do. Hell, her dead baby brother had more to him than you. If I was lucky enough to have either of them for a son, I'd have taken over from Monroe years ago. You, were always a disappointment.'

He turned his back, gathering up papers and spitting orders. Jason stared at the back of his head and thought about his uniform and his command and Charlie – always Charlie. He pulled his gun out of the holster clumsily – the weapon came with the uniform and neither felt quite worn in yet – and shot Tom in the back of the head.

'Rebels,' he said, gun twitching to the side as he shot a hole in the window. Tom slumped and dropped, hitting the desk and then sliding to the floor. 'It was a tragedy.'

The rug was ruined for a start.

Crouching down he put the gun into Tom's hand – remembering the right hand to use – and took General Monroe's heavy, silver gun. He hid it under his jacket, tugging the tails to hide it, and just in time.

Help arrived for the fallen major; his successor made all the right sounds, and stepped back dry-eyed.


End file.
